Educational Leadership - February 2010

classrooms. Building on Vaughn, Bos, and Schumm’s (2000) basic, three-level planning pyramid and Tomlinson and Kalbfleisch’s (1998) work on differentiated classrooms, Lawrence-Brown explains how a teacher might address some students’ individualized education plan goals by adapting the classroom curriculum to include manipulatives, visual aids, charts, audiotapes, and explicit expectations, while also offering an enriched curriculum to gifted students.

Baumgartner, Lipowski, and Rush
(2003) studied a program to improve
reading achievement among elementary
and middle school students using dif-
ferentiated instructional strategies,
including flexible grouping, student
choice of learning tasks, self-selected
reading time, and access to a variety
of texts. In all three of the classrooms
in the study, the targeted students
improved their decoding, phonemic,
and comprehension skills. Student
attitudes about reading and their own
abilities also improved.

What You Can Do

According to Tomlinson and Strickland (2005), teachers usually differentiate instruction by adjusting one or more of the following: the content (what students learn); the process (how students learn); or the product (how students demonstrate their mastery of the knowledge or skills). However, there is no one-size-fits-all model for differentiated instruction; it looks different depending on the prior knowledge, interests, and abilities students bring to a learning situation.

Across the literature, experts (Anderson, 2007; Rock, Gregg, Ellis, & Gable, 2008; Tomlinson, 2000) suggest these guiding principles to support differentiated classroom practices:

■ Focus on the essential ideas and skills of the content area, eliminating ancillary tasks and activities.

■ Respond to individual student dif-
ferences (such as learning style, prior
knowledge, interests, and level of
engagement).

UMUC

Prepare to take a leadership role in administration and multimedia development. Enroll in the Master of Education (MEd) in instructional technology program from University of Maryland University College (UMUC). The MEd helps you integrate technology into curriculum from pre-K to 12. You’ll also learn how to assist in staff development, and create multimedia and Web-based products to help your students learn better.